Viardot vs Grisi

Last Saturday night, as the audience readied itself for the Atlanta Opera’s opening performance of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale for the first time in the company’s history, the ante was unexpectedly raised. Following his customary salutations and the announcement of next season’s offerings, General Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun reported on the indisposition of the evening’s Ernesto, tenor Ji-Min Park, and confidently predicted an overwhelming success for his cover, Argentinian tenor Santiago Ballerini.…

Absent from its stage for 22 years, Verdi’s Macbeth returned to the New Orleans Opera this past weekend for two performances (November 11 and 13 to be exact). As it came to pass, your friends at newoutpost just happened to be in town on unrelated business and invariably asked “What better way to cap the most intense and distasteful presidential campaign in our lifetime than to simmer in the dark world of Macbeth?”…

The Atlanta Opera opened its 2016-17 season this past Saturday October 8^th with a delightful presentation of Mozart’s singspiel Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail. Though the opera does not enjoy top tier status in the international repertoire, it has been championed by the Atlanta Opera company twice before, and the opera’s 2006 production even marked the company’s first (and to this day, only) pre-recorded broadcast for local radio.…

Following the tremendous success of their first operatic collaboration Silent Night, the team of Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell are at it again, offering a riveting operatic adaptation of Richard Condon’s The Manchurian Candidate. The opera debuted in Minnesota in 2015 to great enthusiasm, and premiered regionally at the Austin Opera this past Saturday, September 17 to thunderous ovations.…

To close its 2015-16 season, The Atlanta Opera tipped its hat to French Grand opera and unveiled a star-studded production of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette this past Saturday. While all opera is dependent on singers of not only extraordinary technical pedigree but also of a musical understanding of how language informs declamation, Grand French opera relies on the latter more heavily so, making Romeo et Juliette notoriously difficult to cast. …

On the evening of March 4^th, the Washington Concert Opera closed its 2015-16 season with a wildly applauded performance of Donizetti’s grand opera “Le Favorite”. Central to the performance’s success was the work of maestro Antony Walker, who remains a tireless champion of the Bel Canto repertoire represented through this unjustly neglected piece. …

As the nation geared its attention towards the Thanksgiving festivities, Washington Concert Opera ushered the season in style by offering Rossini’s epic opera seria, Semiramide as its season opener. By the time the baton led the final chords on the piece, it was clear that the company had scored a huge success.…

The Atlanta Opera opened its 2015-16 season with warmly received, though uneven, performances of Puccini’s eternal masterpiece La Boheme. The new production, the  brainchild of General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun, promised to once again (his words) reimagine the work for the benefit of today’s audience, a most suspect practice that tends to elicit a great deal of scrutiny from your friends at newoutpost.…

“A highway, a Walmart, and one of the most exciting Summer Opera Festivals in United States.” It is the line I often use when questioning friends marvel at my travel plans as we fill our modest backpacks with all essentials and head to Indianola, Iowa, to attend another season at Des Moines Metro Opera.…

Moving past the tragedy of Verdi’s Rigoletto, the Atlanta Opera changed gears and delighted audiences with performances of Mozart’s masterpiece “Le nozze di Figaro”, and the company should pride itself in the big success that it proved to be. The dimensions of the piece, though a mainstay of the standard repertoire, are surely daunting for any company: It is a very long opera with a large cast, filled with sprawling dramatic complications and musical pitfalls.…